


Nott the Best Detective Agency and the Case of the Planar-Shifted Alchemist

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (brief mention of cel's spider swarm potion!), Arachnophobia, Crossover, Gen, I hope you enjoy :D, spoilers for cr2e97, this is fluffier than literally anything I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22983868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: When an experiment gone wrong transports Cel to Exandria, they find themself in good, chaotic company.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Nott
Comments: 11
Kudos: 32





	Nott the Best Detective Agency and the Case of the Planar-Shifted Alchemist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hidarkidarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hidarkidarian/gifts).



> Happy birthday Joy!!!!!! I hope you enjoy, and that I did all of their chaotic energies justice. Much love to you, and I hope you have a great year. <3 
> 
> (Also, sorry to any rules lawyers, I neither know nor care how Pathfinder alchemists work.)

The potion is every colour of the rainbow and smells like firecrackers, but Cel’s too excited to care when they upend the contents of the beaker into their mouth. Wiping off the liquid from the corners of their mouth, they wait in anticipation for a moment before —

Cel suddenly finds themself far from their lab, surrounded by dark green, their body being poked on all sides. Around them is the chattering of a city, but they can’t see for nubbins beyond the green. Every movement scratches their arms, and their feet aren’t touching the ground. 

“Uh, hi!” they say to no one in particular. “Can anyone hear me? I seem to be, uh, stuck in what I’m thinking might be a hedge of some sort, although I’m not sure if you’d call them hedges on your plane? They’re like — imagine you had those sharp plants that come up through your sandals sometimes, but they grew very big and all together, and then people trimmed the plants into neat shapes, except mostly they trimmed them into squares because people like to be boring, I guess. You know, I’ve never gotten that but —”

Suddenly, two hands emerge through the thick of leaves and grab Cel’s wrists and, with unexpected strength, pull them painfully through several feet of hedge. Cel doesn’t have time to figure out what’s going on before they’re free of the thorns and falling into two people, both of whom are yelling just as loudly as Cel. In the frantic mess of limbs, several feet end up in Cel’s face before all three of them manage to scramble away from each other. 

Sitting on the ground before Cel are a blue-skinned woman with curly horns head and a halfling woman with beautiful tattoos on her face. The halfling bears scratches all over her body that match Cel’s — it seems like she went into the hedge to pull them out, and the blue woman may have pulled her out by the feet. 

After a moment of staring, the blue woman springs forth towards Cel, examining the scratches on their arms. “Omigod, are you okay? Do you need healing? I’m a cleric, I’m a very good healer.” Cel hasn’t felt their Health Percentage go down, but before they can say that, the woman continues: “Why were you in that bush? Were you hiding from someone?” She gasps dramatically. “Were you kissing someone you weren’t supposed to and you had to run away?” 

From behind her, the halfling woman pipes up: “you might want to give them some space, Jessie. They look a bit confused.”

“I’m okay!” Cel says brightly. “I wasn’t hiding because I was kissing someone, although it’s very nice of you to say that someone might want to kiss me. I took this potion — my friend Zolf just learned this spell where he can shift what plane he’s in, so I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have that spell but with potions? Because I’ve always thought that potions were a lot better than spells. So I was trying to do that in my lab, but — what plane is this, by the way?”

“Uh… the normal one?” the halfling says. “Material?”

“Oh. Oh no. That was not supposed to happen,” Cel says. “What city am I in?” They look around properly for the first time; they’re off to the side of an alleyway in a busy city in which evening is falling. From a distance, they can see people walking, all wearing old-fashioned clothes.

“Nicodranas, in the Open Quay,” Jessie answers.

Cel wracks their brains for a moment. “Is that in Europe? I haven’t been to Europe.” 

Jessie and her friend share a quizzical glance. “What’s Europe?” the halfling asks. 

Before Cel can answer, Jessie gasps at her friend. “Ohmigod Veth, it’s a mystery!”

“Oh! Yes! A case to crack!” Veth says. “The mystery of… the person in the hedge! The person with the potion! Hm, no, we’ll have to work on the name.” Turning to Cel, she continues: “We’re the best detectives ever. We can definitely figure out what happened.”

“That is very kind of you folks, because I’m definitely baffled!” Cel says. “If this isn’t Europe, and you don’t know what Europe is — could this be a different dimension?” Cel’s eyes light up with excitement as they rifle through their large jacket for their notebook and start pouring over their calculations. “I didn’t think that could happen, but maybe I got some of the measurements wrong, or maybe it was because of the way I thought about my destination? Or maybe —”

“If you need someone to help with the magic stuff, our friend Caleb is the smartest wizard ever, so he would probably know what to do,” Veth says. “Also my husband is the best alchemist ever, so if you need help with potions —”

“I would love to meet him!” Cel says, jumping up. “I always want to meet other alchemists. Unless they’re evil? There was this alchemist that kept attacking my village and it turns out he had put his brain in an orb, like a brorb, and that wasn’t actually bad, but also —”

“Oh no, Yeza’s very good!” Jessie, who’s helped Veth to her feet, rests her hands on her friend’s shoulders to calm the sudden anger on Veth’s face. “He’s very nice and sweet. He lives with my Mama in the Lavish Chateau. I can bring you there now, if you’d like?” 

“That would be fantastic. I’m Cel, by the way,” they say.

“Jester Lavorre,” says the blue one, taking Cel’s hand enthusiastically.

“Nott — uh, Veth Brenatto,” says the halfling, her eyes still narrowed at Cel, scrunching the blue tattoos on her face. “But how can we trust you?”

“Oh! Zone of Truth!” Jester says, throwing her hands up in the air in the gesture of a spell, and Cel feels a familiar slight pressure on their chest, pushing them towards honesty. 

“I know this one! I think my friend Zolf can cast it, and maybe Azu? I should ask her.” 

“Are you going to try to kill me and my husband?” Veth blurts out. “Are you a spy sent to murder us in our sleep?” She gasps. “What is your relationship with a man called Trent Ikithon?”

“No idea who that is!” Cel says cheerfully. “And I don’t want to kill you, unless you try to kill me, but I don’t think you would because you both seem really nice.”

“See, they’re fine!” Jester says. With a suddenly serious look on her face, she approaches Cel. “You have to answer this one truthfully, okay? It’s very important.” She takes both of their hands in hers and looks straight into Cel’s eyes, which sit a foot higher than hers. “Do you think I’m cute?”

“Oh for sure!” Cel says with a large grin. “You’re adorable. Do you think I’m attractive?” 

“Yes! I like your hair. How did you get it to go up so much?”

“I have this potion, I call it the Extract of Hair Sticking Up? And I drink it every morning but I have to be sure not to take it twice a day or else —” 

And so they set off, Jester and Cel chatting enthusiastically and Veth interjecting occasionally to learn more about Cel’s potions; for all her bragging about her husband, she seems like an incredibly talented alchemist in her own right, and follows all of Cel’s loquacious scientific ramblings with interest. Cel is curious about everything, from Jester’s horns “— did you take a potion to grow those? I have a potion that makes me, like, well, I call it a person-bat —” to Veth’s tattoos “— you have to teach me how to do that, that would be real useful —” to every detail of Nicodranas and the strange world they’ve found themself in. Jester is the most on-task of all of them, asking for more information about Cel’s dimension shift to help crack the case, in between a detailed tour of the city.

* * *

By the time that the reach the entrance to a fancy neighbourhood that Jester calls the “Opal Archways,” night has thoroughly fallen and Cel has already eaten two moss cupcakes (with five more in their bag of holding for their partymates, lab assistant, and favourite kobold general) and been thoroughly evangelized about the Traveler (whom Cel, normally indifferent to anything divine, must admit seems very neat.) Jester stops, appearing genuinely worried for the first time since Cel met her. 

“What’s wrong, Jessie?” Veth says, concern immediate in her voice.

“Oh, it’s nothing!” Jester says brightly, the anxiety dropping from her face. “I was just thinking that maybe we should take another route to avoid the house of, you know, Lord Sharp? Just cause, like, it would just be really weird, and Cel’s here, so...” 

“I’m sorry, I, uh, I think I must be out of the loop!” Cel says, oblivious to Jester’s concealed sadness. 

“Well… I may have played a really funny trick on him one time…” Jester says, launching into an explanation of her balcony-prank on Lord Sharp, his subsequent order for her execution, and how she doesn’t really find him scary anymore, but would rather not run into him again. As she speaks, Cel’s face grows increasingly red. 

“Well, he sounds like a — a butthead!” Cel says. “You said you are the best trickster ever, so have you ever considered, like, maybe doing another prank on him? It may not help, but I can say from personal experience that it makes you feel a lot better. Like when these lads and blokes were attacking my village —”

“I mean, I’m always down for pranks,” Veth interjects. “But I think maybe Jester’s worried about her Sharp finding out it was her and ruining the reputation of her incredibly famous and talented mother.”

“Oh! Well, if that’s the only problem” — Cel rummages through the bottles in their cloak — “I have this potion that can make you look like someone different. Or a dolphin, if that would be useful in this situation, or maybe invisible? Oh, and he doesn’t know who I am and I’m not even from this plane, so it’s not like he can ruin my reputation. And I am very sneaky.” 

Veth looks at Jester, waiting for her response. After a moment, her uncertainty gives way to a smile. “Oh man... I can also make myself look like someone different, and so can Veth. And he does have a big balcony...” 

* * *

And that’s how Jester and Cel, both polymorphed into eagles, find themselves landing on an ornate balcony on the side of a giant mansion. Jester sets an invisible Veth down carefully, and Cel can hear her scramble to her feet and pick the lock on the door as they preen their feathers in a way that they hope deflects suspicion. 

Ten minutes later, the party is squished in a cupboard in one of the mansion’s many hallways. 

“So what’s the plan?” Jester whispers.

“I thought you had a plan!” Veth whispers back, peering under the door to check for passing guards. 

“I had the idea for getting us in, I thought that you had the plan!” Jester says.

“Do you think he’d like throwing up spiders?” Cel says, grinning and holding up a bottle full of squirming liquid. 

“Is it going to hurt him? And how would we get that in his food without him noticing?” Jester says.

“Good point. Hm…” Cel says, rifling through their improbably full jacket. “What about something that will make him dance? Or maybe a laughing potion? Or wait, or wait — I could make him turn into a cloud?”

Jester gives Veth a smile. “What about all three?”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cel is cackling quietly to themself as they carefully funnel three potions into a wine bottle that was left on a rack for tomorrow’s dinner. 

“Hurry up!” Jester whispers from the doorway where she and Veth are keeping watch. “I think I hear someone coming.” 

* * *

Five minutes later, the three of them are running at break-neck speed away from five guards while two more call for backup. Cel and Jester are disguised as identical dwarves of different heights, while an invisible Veth speeds ahead of them.

“We need a distraction! I didn’t prepare any spells for this!” Jester whispers frantically to Cel as they run. 

Cel knows how to do a distraction. As the fourth bomb goes off — aimed away from the guards, of course, but quite enough to cave in the hallway’s ceiling — Veth can’t help but stop and turn around for a moment, murmuring in admiration a quiet “fluffernutter.” 

* * *

Ten minutes later, Veth, Jester, and Cel are breathlessly giggling on the floor of a stable they ducked into, listening to the sounds of the Zhelezo raising an alarm throughout the Opal Archways. 

“Y’all, I have not had this much fun in a very long time,” Cel says between laughs. “Do your detective cases always end up this? Cause if so, sign me right up.” 

At Cel’s words, Jester’s eyes go wide with excitement, and she gestures to a marking on Veth’s upper arm that looks like two interlocking C’s. 

“How would you like to join the Chaos Crew?” Jester says with a grin, pulling out a needle. “Also, how do you feel about tattoos?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Redd, Babs, Caeliat, Heather, and Kai for your ideas-bouncing assistance, beta-reading, and encouragement!!


End file.
